I'm homesick. But I cannot go back to Syria. I lost everything. And I'm against the Syrian regime, so there is no way to go back. I'm really homesick.

When you have a goal to reach, you will be strong automatically. And you will be patient automatically. If you don't have a goal, your life will be a disaster. You will lose yourself and you will lose your soul.

Despite everything - despite all this hatred, despite all this misunderstanding between nations and civilizations - I think love is the end. Love is the end.

To see your country being destroyed from afar - it's very hard to only watch and do nothing. My writing is the only way to address my feelings about this disaster and to at least try to find a solution as a writer. I know I have limits. But I have to do my best as a writer.

Some of my good friends who were writers disappeared. Others are still inside Syria and there are others who are refugees. I'm worried about those who disappeared. I don't know anything about them now. They just disappeared like that after the war started, while I was living in the United States.

Before Donald Trump, I was not worried. To be honest with you, when I came to the United States, I felt freedom right away. But after Trump, I became worried not only for immigrants, not only for Muslims, not only for the US. Now I'm worried for the whole world.

I'm writing a novel about the Syrian war. It will be completely different from my short stories. I have to address my feelings directly because I cannot avoid the war. It's something in my soul, in my blood.